Meat curing involves treating a meat product with addivites such as salt, color-fixing ingredients and seasonings in order to impart desired palletability traits to the meat product. The meat products that can be cured in this manner include intact meat products and comminuted meat products. Intact meat products include bacon, corned beef, ham, smoked butt, pork hocks, chicken, turkey and related meat products. Comminuted meat products include all types of sausage items. Products intermediate to these categories include sectioned meat products, chunked meat products and formed meat products.
Meat curing agents or additives include sodium chloride, sodium and potassium nitrate, sodium and potassium nitrite, sodium ascorbate, sodium erythorbate, phosphates, sugar, seasonings, and the like. The.salt content of such cured meats generally varies from about 1 to about 12% by weight depending on the particular type of meat product. Salt is used for flavor, preservation and extraction of myofibrillar protein. Nitrite promotes color development, flavor and preservation by inhibiting the growth of microorganisms and fat oxidation. Erythorbate acts as a color stabilizer, reduces fat oxidation and inhibits undesirable nitrite reactions. Phoshates facilitate myofibrillar protein extraction, inhibit fat oxidation and improve color development. Sugar is used principally for flavor, but also helps set color or develop glazes.
A problem that has occurred with most cured meat products that are currently available is that the level of sugar required to provide desired flavor characteristics in these products renders them unsuitable for diabetics and other consumers requiring low-sugar diets. Additionally, the relatively high levels of salt employed in these products renders many of them unsuitable for consumers restricted to low salt or low sodium diets. Anyway the sugar does not appear to enhance the effects of other additives.
Although attempts have been made to cure bacon and ham using apple slices in place of sugar during curing, these attempts were not sufficiently satisfactory to the accepted commercially. This dissatisfaction with the attempted cured product may be due to the fact that the absorption of the fruit parts and juices from the apple slices into the meat ws not sufficient to provide satisfactory levels of cur. Anyway these attempts appear to be no more than unsatisfactory experiments with little or no enhancement of the effects of the other additives.